This case was the product of an extensive investigation by the Calverton. Maryland; Cleveland, Ohio; Richmond, Virginia; and Sacramento offices of the FBI, and was undertaken as part of Project Safe Childhood (PSC). PSC is a United States Department of Justice initiative established to increase federal prosecutions of violent sexual predators of children and to reduce the number of Internet crimes against children including child pornography trafficking. As a part of PSC, the United States Attorney’s Office has teamed with state and local agencies and organizations to increase law enforcement presence on the Internet, and to educate the public about safe Internet use, thereby reducing the risk that children might fall prey to online sexual predators. For additional information on the PSC initiative, please go to www.projectsafechildhood.gov or call the United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of California and ask to speak with the PSC coordinator.

According to court documents and Assistant United States Attorney Laurel D. White, who prosecuted the case, ALLEN pleaded guilty in September of this year to charges that he possessed and transported, on three separate occasions, child pornography. Evidence revealed that on those three occasions, undercover FBI agents from Maryland, Virginia and Ohio were allowed access to ALLEN’s computer and his shared collection of more than 54,000 images and videos of sexually explicit images of minors. Agents were then able to download sexually explicit images of children through the use of a file-sharing program ALLEN had installed on his computer.

A search warrant was ultimately obtained for ALLEN’s residence, and on February 10, 2009, agents searched his apartment. An on-site preview of his computer revealed a large collection of videos and images depicting minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct, including those downloaded by the three FBI agents on August 6th, November 25th and December 5th, 2008. A subsequent forensic analysis revealed more than 200,000 videos and images of child pornography, many of them depicting known and previously identified victims of child sexual abuse whose images were produced outside the state of California. When interviewed, ALLEN acknowledged distributing images of child pornography via the file sharing program he used and said he knew what he was doing was wrong.

In addition to his prison sentence, ALLEN was ordered to serve a 10-year term of supervised release upon his release from custody. He was also ordered to pay $7,500 in restitution to one of the victims depicted in the videos he possessed and made available to others. The defendant was also ordered to pay a $400 special assessment.